Oil giant BP says there needs to be a price on carbon to enable the market to cut emissions. You read correctly. One of the world's six major oil and gas companies supports a global price on carbon.

In the latest version of its annual Energy Outlook report, BP recommends that government set a meaningful global price on carbon emissions to level the playing field for businesses and let the market choose the best climate solutions.

While there is a growing number of companies and investors that support carbon pricing, it's big news when an oil and gas company joins the ranks. ExxonMobil publicly backed a carbon tax in 2009, even if they did logy against a cap and trade scheme in the U.S. Congress. And only recently the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure project) reported that many companies (Exxon, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Shell) were using carbon pricing estimated to plan for hypothetical future regulation in the US.

Unlike the US Senator James Inhofe who argued that climate change isn't real, and slammed the "warmest year on record" statements by producing a snowball in the US Congress , respected organizations such as NASA are not concerned with setting records. Rather they are interested, as is business, in long-term trends which do continue to show a gradually warming Earth. Fortunately for us all, climate change science, not the snowball argument, will continue to influence global policy and see business take action.

The Our Green Home project is part of the LIEEP - Low Carbon Communities Program funded by the Australian Government. It is designed to help lower income households save money by reducing energy use. This project is being managed by Sustainable Business Australia and involves SBA members Object Consulting (who provide the smart energy technology), KPMG, Connection Research, Ecocreative and in strategic alliance with APEX Australia. Read more...